To want to live in Jilly Cooper land?

[LysistrataVickers]

I know there are a fair few Jilly lovers on Mumsnet and (excluding the misogyny and sexism etc of the time) would anyone like to indulge in a little Jilly-esque reminiscence? My local park reeks of wild garlic and I'm rereading Polo for the millionth time whilst contemplating buying a horse I can't afford so please, Jilly lovers, join me in remembering and discussing her best and worst bits to distract me from buying horses I can't afford ?

@Cherrysoup

Does 10lbs mean your thighs no longer rub together?! I don’t think I could cope with the heartache you have to go through in JC world until you find your ‘one’, although all the horses would help. I’d love my own yard.

Sadly not. I have recently lost more than that and can confirm I still have chub rub.

Although they are probably starting off from less than I weigh even now, which might explain it.

God no thanks

The books are great and all. But posh people are so unsexy

I want to live in Paradise with Lysander and Kitty. Hermione is great to read but she'd be unbearable in real life.

I wish Luke would roll up in a horse box and whisk me off somewhere, reciting poetry in Spanish on the way

Yes, I would rather live in Jilly land. It’s so much more exciting!

I'm such an uparse feminist because I adored these books as a teenager but just can't look past the misogyny and wholesale abuse. Even Billy, who clearly the reader is supposed to love as Jilly does to the extent she hates Helen, is a rapist.

I couldn't find Rupert remotely attractive (although Ricky France-Lynch is possibly another matter). Incidentally, although Jilly later coughed that she'd based the Rupert character on Andrew Parker-Bowles (blech!) I had him pegged as Rupert Chawner-Brooke. His image bears a striking resemblance to the description Cooper gives him in the book and even the initials are the same. And he's a sight more attractive than the actual model!

Jilly-world, the only place to escape her plethora of abusive males is possibly Port Le Pins with Imogen and the beautiful journalist Matt, if you could endure the hideously catty Cable and Yvonne. The way he does a Pygmalion on her is a wee bit nauseating, though.

Perhaps, on the whole, the best characters were the horses ...

I found Wicked horrible too....

Oh but to live in Rutshire would be an absolute dream.
When I first read Appasionata I literally didn’t move off the sofa for days. Then I went crazy planting night scented stocks, searching for Fracas ‘scent’ to rub behind my ear lobes, deciding I wanted to cook like Taggie and asking my DH to bring me a bottle of Pouilly Fume in from the supermarket.
It still comes over me now years later. Just a few weeks ago I cooked kedgeree and felt all Jillyish.
It’s a disease

Must reread these again I could with a bit of fun I love rider first read it 30 years ago god feel old today.

I'm a teacher at a "rough comp" and I couldn't read Wicked - absolute tripe - wrong on so many levels. I think JC has her place and her earlier stuff was great for a lighthearted romp - I remember reading Riders over a weekend decades ago, and couldn't put it down - she's good at the upper class stuff which is pure escapism, but she has no idea about 'real life' at all.

Agree Wicked was excruciating.

Mist go and empty my washing up machine now. I won't be having breakfast as there is nothing but champagne in the fridge.

Jilly Cooper story set in MNland:

Taggie shifted uneasily from foot to foot in the kitchen doorway (nobody knows why she shifts like that - maybe she's got cramp) looking at the remains of the roast chicken.
She could probably get a meal of Tarragon Chicken out of it for their own little family, then 24 helpings (she didn't need to be reminded that the word "portions" is common) of Coronation Chicken for Monica's shooting lunch; then it was only fit for stock.

She was a bit worried because her husband - aka the "handsomest man in England" - seemed to her to actually look a bit like Camilla P-B's ex, so perhaps she should LTB.
Or get her eyes checked.
And he was always hitting people across the room for flirting with her. Was that a red flag? And did it have to always be "across the room"? Couldn't he just slap them a bit or just say "Har har! Yes, she is a bit of all right, isn't she? And I get to DTD with her every night " like a normal man?

She definitely needed to go NC with her ghastly mother, sweet-but-selfish sister and alcoholic, adulterous father, but felt that would lose a lot of plot lines.

Oh God! Could she hear a Porsche storming up the drive?
The drive!

Along the sides of which the ghastly nouveau riche Valerie Four-Barreled-Because-Double-Is-Common-These-Days had insisted on having planted several rows of serried bright tulips, daffodils and rare wild orchids: "Ay think ay splash hov colour is ever so naice when one is receivin' folks in one's own 'ome", she'd said, employing an accent and vocabulary known only to Blackpool land ladies in 1950s Ealing comedies.

Someone got out and rocked up to the front door.

There was knocking! At the door!

She wasn't expecting anyone and, besides, why should she be at the beck and call of others in her own home?

She hid under the table, stroking Gertrude (whose death would have turned out to be far more tragic than her stepdaughter's rape) until the knocking stopped.

Outside, Rannaldini shoved his ideas for "The Crown" - an almost true story about the aristocracy - into the pocket of his expensive-brand-name overcoat and turned away.
His mobile phone rang.
"'Ello, my leetle wild theeng," he murmured in a random Johnny Foreigner accent.

In the kitchen, Taggy crept out from under the table, unhampered by any bulk at all, relieved to have put a spoke in the wheel of a new storyline.

The End.

Brava, LaMarschallin!!
👏👏👏

When Taggie comes out from under the table, should she not rush upstairs for a bath and to wash her cloudy dark hair? After that she'll likely wrap herself in a red towel and drip across the landing (leaving damp footprints) then leave the towel in the bath and the hairdryer on her dressing table.

Hengist in Wicked was truly annoying. It was disappointing that Rupert cheated on Taggie, but considering that the character of Rupert was based on serial philanderers not surprising.

Can't decide whether I want to live in Magpie Cottage or Woodbine Cottage with my two cats Peppy and Penscombe, always with a tub of banana ice cream in the freezer for comfort eating just in case "he" doesn't call or come round.

I may have two children named after July Cooper characters

I may have a love of cooking partly based on wanting to be Taggie. I have a cloud of hair but it isn't dark

I may have named numerous horses, cats and dogs based on animals in her novels.

However I'm no longer sure I could sleep with RCB as 'buttercunt' has flipped my off switch. 🤣🤣🤣

I read these avidly about once every five years. Every time I read them, I buy up smoked salmon and Sancerre, make fish pies, fill the deep freeze with shepherds pie and Google apple wood logs.

I like all the bits in the country and poverty stricken, sweet women being realistically anxious about their slovenliness and being rescued by some casually handsome man with bags of cash, who takes nothing too seriously who thinks they’re the best thing since sliced bread.

When I’m divorced (can’t be long now!) I will be practically begging to rent a tumbledown cottage with damp and a washing up machine that won’t work unless I lean against it. I’m also certain that I will drop 7lbs a week from heartbreak (could be a few months - nay - years - til I’m “vulnerable” or “fragile” looking) and it WILL all be alright in the end. Shagging sexy men who are seduced by me in nothing but a bath towel and Floris without much angst but lots of Dom Perignon is what I want MY 50s to be about.

Who wants a dry house and a plump pink liver anyway? All of life’s most serious problems are solved by washing your hair and cracking open the champagne, even if it’s breakfast.

I’m up for a move to Rutshire! I have one child named after a Jilly character and desperately wanted a Perdita but DH vetoed.
My favourite book by far is Polo, I’ve never been to Argentina but love the descriptions of all the beautiful people raised on peaches and steak. And I still think almost everything can be solved by losing 10lbs, getting a few highlights and sitting in the sun for a bit to go brown!

I recommend listening to Jilly on Desert Island Discs. It's a few years old now, but it popped up for me again on my app so I enjoyed it all over. It was lovely to hear about her early life.

Not that she talked about it but I am irrationally pissed at her real life husband Leo though for having a years long affair at the start of their marriage. The other woman decided to wrote about it years later. I wonder if Jilly knew at the time?

I am trying to lose weight at the moment. I perhaps need my heart breaking.

Does anyone remember that lovely MN poster Lou from a decade or so ago? Her arse of a husband just moved out one day and took all the cutlery and everything. It mirrored what happened to Daisy when Perdita's step dad pocketed whatever it was from there kitchen as his new girlfriend didn't have a working one.

I need a new dog I could call badger. Badger is a fab name for a dog.

Can’t get past buttercunt!

@YesPleaseMary

Love a bit of Jilly! I'm thinking of going on a grapefruit diet to lessen my bulk and once I've done that I'll mantan my legs and drench myself in Fracas before turning up at the Penscombe hunt ball to try and catch Rupert's eye. But I won't be wearing one of Mousie's ge-owns!

Don't forget to shave your legs first,or you'll end up with streaks, like Larry in Imogen.

I have found my people - just finished re reading TMWMHJ, I want to ride horses , cook and waft about valleys walking my dog .

Dreaming happily here... dd was Tabitha until I was overruled by dp. Both dc have just started horse riding and it’s all coming back to me!

I would be someone who Jilly wrote with a godawful cockernee accent. Like Mrs Makepiece.

But I would like to be buxom and hypnotize waiters with my breasts like escaping puppies. Sadly these days they are like escaping suet and would terrorize.

I love “heaving her 10 stone bulk” 😁

I lost 10 lb last summer! Didn't realise I was channelling Jilly. I used to work in classical music and opera and there was a surprising amount of realism in both Appassionata and Score! I particularly liked the Arts Council couple, her with hairy legs and him with dodgy sandals and a bike he'd had since university.

Also I play viola so I warmed to Flora instantly.

Hurrah! A Jilly thread🥰🥰
Agree totally with the hideousness of Wicked (am a teacher and I couldn't read it).
I would like a lovely dinner in the Heavenly Host with Billy. I was a terrible bitch to him😂 despite typing topless in the garden!

I quite liked Pandora 😊
Sophie and Alizarin were my favs.

There was a Mumsnetter years ago who wrote her A level (I think) coursework on a Jilly book and got an A. I'll never forget being in total awe of her😊

I checked with my kids riding instructor and he confirmed its true that lots of people have sex in horseboxes. Who knew?!!!

Not at any of the competitions I’ve been to (they do rock quite easily so you’d know if someone was having a bonk in one) or indeed at any of the hunt balls I’ve been to (although perhaps I was too pissed to notice...)

I can’t believe Rupert cheated on Taggie

And does anyone else remember That Rhyme every 1st May?

“1st of May, 1st of May, outdoor fucking starts today. But if as usual it do rain, we fucks off indoors again.”

I love how everyone always ends up looking just right/happens to find an abandoned horse/stumbles across an adorable cottage they’re allowed to live in for peanuts. It’s like a Jill book (for the similarly horsey) but with sex.